Because various forms of textual peacocking are frequently used by people who have no status, or knowledge, in a particular domain to try and appear as if they do.
This is part of what a system like karma tries to address, if you see a comment that seems accurate, but is delivered in a very direct or even slightly annoyed tone by a user with high karma, you assume that this user is held in high esteem by others and while their comment may not be elegant, it should be taken to heart.
Additionally, in the hacker sphere, it seems that many of the top hackers are also VERY busy with their projects. Thus, they may
have less time to spend prettying up a comment. The goal is to share knowledge or information in the most efficient manner. Not to share knowledge without worrying about hurting feelings.
Meanwhile, a direct comment from a new user with no standing in the community is likely to be met with some distrust or skepticism, even if wholly accurate. That user has not earned a status in the community. They have two options: 1) be brutally direct with all their comments and wait for people to realize they are frequently right, just inelegant. 2) start at least initially with more of a 'hearts and minds' campaign with their comments and build status in a more traditional method, slowly letting more of their actual personality come through in their comments.
Hmm, I'm somewhat surprised to hear this description of karma. Does this mean people click through on a username to discover their karma score before deciding if they should believe or agree with what has been written?
It seems pretty clear to me that karma mostly measures the amount of time spent commenting. An interesting metric, but not one I would look to to predict comment quality.
There have been times that I personally have seen a less-than-elegant comment from a new (to me) username. So, I check out the persons profile, look at their karma, other comments, submissions, etc., and then reply/vote/whatever.
Not very frequently, but one or two times a month maybe.
This is part of what a system like karma tries to address, if you see a comment that seems accurate, but is delivered in a very direct or even slightly annoyed tone by a user with high karma, you assume that this user is held in high esteem by others and while their comment may not be elegant, it should be taken to heart.
Additionally, in the hacker sphere, it seems that many of the top hackers are also VERY busy with their projects. Thus, they may have less time to spend prettying up a comment. The goal is to share knowledge or information in the most efficient manner. Not to share knowledge without worrying about hurting feelings.
Meanwhile, a direct comment from a new user with no standing in the community is likely to be met with some distrust or skepticism, even if wholly accurate. That user has not earned a status in the community. They have two options: 1) be brutally direct with all their comments and wait for people to realize they are frequently right, just inelegant. 2) start at least initially with more of a 'hearts and minds' campaign with their comments and build status in a more traditional method, slowly letting more of their actual personality come through in their comments.